LogFAQs > #938427572

LordoftheMorons posted...

That's incorrect. If a given community has a small number of cases, it will eventually become a very large number of cases if R is allowed to remain above 1. If they do have very few cases, though, that's all the more reason to implement contact tracing: if they do so quickly, they have a decent shot at containing the virus.

The whole game is keeping R below 1. Honestly while the "flatten the curve" narrative was initially somewhat helpful in communicating to people, it left many with the false impression that we're going to get the same number of cases no matter what and just need to spread them over a longer period of time. In reality, a maintained R<1 soon enough means a small fraction of the country gets the virus.

Did you even see the graphs you are talking about for flattening the curve? Because you are incorrect.

The flattening the curve model is that when it goes up, you mitigate/lockdowm to flatten the curve under the hospital stress limit (a limit we never have reached as of now).

When you lower the curve, you ease up and the virus comes right back. And you do the same thing again to keep it under the new limit. Each subsequent time you should have more capacity, more people immune from previous times, and the curve should be able to go higher without breaking the limits.

The model has always operated as if it comes back every time you let up the lockdown. And, it has always had loosening restrictions of lockdowns because it is unfeasible for countries to just stay in lockdowns.

The goal is not to keep the r0 under 1 indefinitely. The goal is to go under r1 to lower the curve and stop exponential growth before you loosen restrictions for it to come right back and start anew hopefully slower due to distancing guidelines and with more capacity built up for it.

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